Worth the price? Need Opinions

[ShinePaw101]

I'd like to talk with those that currently own the game and get to know what they think of the price. I think it's a bit high but it does seem like something I may enjoy. I have played and enjoy the games below-

Don't Starve; $10 (Together is $15 but I got it for free as I owned the original game)
Starbound; $15
Terraria; $10
Stardew Vally; $15

For the price of $20 I'm a bit worried of putting in that much money into it right now. What do you all think?
I only list the prices of those games as it seems somewhat like those games yet new. As well as the comment of- 'Forager is a 2D open world game inspired by exploration, farming and crafting games such as Stardew Valley, Terraria & Zelda.'

I am interested but would like some other opinions. I don't mind waiting for a sale

[Elegant Caveman]

As a general rule, for any game, a customer is always better off waiting than buying something at launch: you get more content (free and/or DLC), bug fixes and lower prices (from price drops or sales).

For singleplayer games, especially, the only valid reason (imho, of course) to buy a game sooner than later is to support the developer(s).

Multiplayer games have the added incentive to buy early of usually having more people to play with near a game's "early days".

So how does all this apply to this game?

It doesn't have multiplayer, though co-op is planned for the future, so that "reason/excuse" is off the table for now.

As for supporting the dev, he's pretty awesome and this is a passion project, so if that's something you care about, this is a good reason to buy the game.

As for the game itself, it's relatively short and low on content right now (maybe ~20-30h for a completionist approach, though some have finished it in a lot less, and some will enjoy replaying it more than others might). It seems to me that 10-15$ would have been a better price.

That said, it's insanely addictive, and I don't regret buying it, despite not usually buying things at launch.

What sold me, in this case, was trying out the free demo[hopfrog.itch.io] and deciding I needed more.

Originally posted by ShinePaw101:

I don't mind waiting for a sale

If you have the patience, this is always the "smarter" option.

[Fragrant Flaaffy]

As it is now? No...it's not worth it's price tag- I played it for 25 hours (over 3 days), and that's with a long break with it minimized...and I've done everything. Every single thing.
Meanwhile I've clocked well over 1k hours on Terraria and I still enjoy it- granted it's not the same game but let's face it- it costs less, has 100+ times the amount of things this game does.
Not to discredit the work on Forager, what I did play I enjoyed- but now I'm done...I don't see myself replaying it tbh.

[Silver Lining]

In the politest way possible, definitely not worth $20. I split it with a friend for $13 (he just wanted a drm-free copy) and that's pretty much what it's worth, I'd say. I'm interested in seeing how it develops further with the current roadmap, but it's completely DWARFED in comparison to all the games you mentioned.

It's a fun 10-15hrs, but it's no Stardew. As for the LoZ and Terraria references, I'm not sure why the devs chose to use those as comparisons (unless they're just inspirations) b/c combat is very easy, especially once you get unlimited charge on your wands, and the mining aspect mostly just turns into a grind-wall after the first 5-ish hours.

This is basically a mix of simplified stardew and clicker games (but not the manipulative type). Addictive and cute, but not very deep beyond the grind and linear progression.

[HopFrog]

We need to remember Terraria, Don't Starve and to some degree, Starew came out when there ware FAR fewer indie games on Steam, so they didn't need to price themselves very high (When there are fewer indie games, more people buy the ones that exist because they get featured EVERYWHERE). Also, most of these games have had YEARS of content updates and/or paid DLCs to grow and expand content!

Forager is not meant to be a competitor to these games that intends to replace them. By all means, if you only have $20 you should go buy Terraria! After that if you are done/bored and want something else, get Stardew or Forager on sale is what I would say! :D

My plan with Forager is to keep updating every 2 months completely for FREE, which means $20 is how high I needed to price it to make sense from a business perspective. I will only charge for Forager once on Steam, once you got it everything else I add is completely free. Imo paid DLCs or expansions are just annoying!

The game will go on sale during big updates and holidays as normal, so please feel free to just wait until the first sale if you are unsure! I also uploaded a completely free demo over here, by the way![hopfrog.itch.io]

[ShinePaw101]

Thank you for the replies! I'm for sure going to follow the game and keep track of when it goes on sale.
I force myself to stick to a budget as it's the only way I don't spend all of my money on Steam as I may love games too much XD
I really appreciate the comments! I was in no way expecting that the developer/s themselves would be responding to me! I look forward to seeing more about this game and what the future holds!
-Sincerely a dork in love with games